Bias

Within Innis’ theory, the notion of bias is central and inseparably related with the medium, and will serve as central analytical lens for studying digital technology in this dissertation.

According to Comor, the concept of bias did not originate with Innis’ communication theory;

rather, Innis had been using bias for a longer time, and first developed it “as a heuristic tool employed in the task of empowering the social scientist, encouraging him/her to develop a

463 Carey, Communication as Culture, 33.

464 Carey, Communication as Culture, 12.

465 See subchapter 4.2.3 in this dissertation.

reflexive mode of intellectual practice.”⁴⁶⁶ Indeed, the notion of bias as employed by Innis encourages critical thinking, which also represents why bias was chosen for this dissertation as a device to critically think about digital technology; yet, for the purpose of this dissertation, attention is only paid to bias in the context of his communication theory. However, even in this context, he employed it in various regards to speak about, e.g. “bias of significance”;⁴⁶⁷

“bias of the period in which we work”;⁴⁶⁸ “the bias of modern civilizations”;⁴⁶⁹ “the bias of other civilizations”;⁴⁷⁰ and so on. He even said about himself that his bias was with the oral tradition,⁴⁷¹ or that he had the bias of an economist.⁴⁷² Despite these various uses, only bias as related to the medium is employed within this dissertation. From this perspective, Innis mainly used bias to speak about characteristics of the medium (things that they facilitated and hindered) and their various implications, e.g. bias of paper;⁴⁷³ bias of mechanized communication;⁴⁷⁴ bias towards centralisation or decentralisation;⁴⁷⁵ or bias towards ecclesiastical or political organisation.⁴⁷⁶ Innis’ understanding of bias resembles dictionary definitions, where it refers to an inclination or prejudice for or against someone or something;⁴⁷⁷ “a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation”;⁴⁷⁸ or

“a preference towards a particular subject or thing”.⁴⁷⁹ These understandings are somewhat similar to how Innis uses bias, because by persistently highlighting that each medium facilitated certain things while hindering others, he implied that each medium had a bias understood as an inclination towards certain patterns of use, towards specific forms of writing, specific forms of dissemination, etc. However, given that Innis’ definition of medium was complex, so too was his notion of bias.

466 Comor, “Harold Innis,”278. As Comor explains his theory has to be seen in the context of the historical time when it was written.

467 Innis, Bias, 33.

468 Ibid.

469 Innis, Bias, 34.

470 Innis, Bias, 33.

471 Innis, Bias, 190.

472 Innis, Bias, 1.

473 Innis, Empire,136.

474 Innis, Empire,142.

475 Innis, Empire, 5.

476 Innis, Empire, 169.

477 See entry on “bias” in Oxford Dictionaries Online ,

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bias?q=bias (accessed 22 November 2012).

478 See entry on “bias” in a Canadian online dictionary, namely in: “idictionary.ca”

http://www.idictionary.ca/definition/bias/ (accessed 22 November 2012).

479 See entry on “bias” in Cambridge Dictionaries Online,

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/bias_1?q=bias (accessed 22 November 2012).

According to van Loon, when Innis introduced bias, this notion and equivalents were already in use within other communication theories to signify a dysfunction in the communication process. For instance, in mainstream communication, bias was related with those people involved in communication processes and with the intentional distortion and manipulation of messages.⁴⁸⁰ In the theory of Shannon and Weaver, the notion of “noise” was employed to refer to disturbances affecting the decoding of messages.⁴⁸¹ In both cases what was sought was the elimination of bias or noise by administrative, technical or other means. For Innis, bias referred to the key characteristics of a medium, whether strengths or weaknesses. Any form of communication had its own bias, and from this perspective bias could not really be eliminated since it defined a medium. Accordingly, eliminating one bias would lead to the medium having a different bias. Some researchers have the tendency to relate his notion of bias exclusively with matter or material properties of communication, yet this was not the case, particularly in light of his definition of medium, which was not resumed to matter.⁴⁸² Van Loon argues that it is inappropriate to interpret Innis’ concept of bias solely from the perspective of the ‘matter’ of communication, highlighting four dimensions of bias identified in Innis’ work: first, he identifies a bias of matter through which communication takes places, such as stone, paper, electronic wires, microprocessors, which van Loon argues anchor the entire process of mediation in a material world; second, van Loon identifies a bias of form, referring to how matter is ordered and organised, e.g. uni- or multi-directional, linear or non-linear, etc.; third, van Loon identifies a bias of use, relating to how media are anchored in specific practices, with bias emerging from this perspective as that which triggers specific uses while discouraging others; and fourth, van Loon notes a bias of know-how or skills needed to produce outcomes.⁴⁸³ These different facets of bias can be said to enforce Innis’

broad definition of medium, and thus agree with van Loon, for whom “bias highlights that media-technology is constituted by an interplay between the technological artefact (the tool or better ‘matter’ and ‘form’), its practical applications (usage), as well as the knowledge and skills that are necessary to make it work (know-how).”⁴⁸⁴ This perspective is similar to that of Chesher, who also sustains that medium bias is given by “the interactions between three interdependent layers: properties of media substrates; encoding conventions; and social and

480 van Loon, Media Technology, 22.

481 Ibid.

482 The tendency to relate his notion of bias with matter only is more evident in interpretations of the concepts of space- and time-bias. See subchapter 4.2.3 in this dissertation.

483 The description has been summarized from van Loon, Media Technology, 24.

484 van Loon, Media Technology, 26.

political arrangements using media for particular purposes.”⁴⁸⁵ Moreover, Angus’

interpretation of Innis is also similar, arguing that “the characteristics of a medium of communication cannot be defined through the material characteristics of the object with which it is concerned but only the manner of dealing with that object.”⁴⁸⁶

An important argument of Innis emphasises that a medium is constituted not only by matter but also by social aspects, which perhaps enforces the statement that his theory was not technological determinist. Not only did the medium have the power to influence context, but context also exercised its share of influence on the medium. This can be best revealed by making recourse to Innis’ own work. To exemplify, Innis described the development of the newspaper in the U.S., explaining how different formats of newspapers appeared in relation to different contextual interests. Innis explains that newspapers developed in trading towns in relation to the need to make business announcements and communications. However, they were later appropriated for advertising, which started increasing in importance as a source of revenue. Consequently, in terms of format and size, the newspaper increased from 9" X 15"

with four pages and three columns per page to 12" X 19½" with four columns, of which two-thirds was advertising; later, Innis suggests, in order to provide greater accommodation for small advertisements the size of the newspaper increased again to 24" X 35" by 1828 and the number of columns from four to six.⁴⁸⁷ As this description of Innis indicates, bias is not something resulting purely from the medium, but also from how society appropriates the medium, and assumes a dynamic relationship between technology and society. Such an understanding is very similar to actor-network theory, which, according to Bruno Latour, is one of the most successful ways of solving the shortcomings of the technological determinist/social constructivist dichotomy existing in studies of technology.⁴⁸⁸ As Latour explains, actor-network theory agrees with the social constructivist that socio-technical systems are created through negotiations between people and institutions, yet they additionally consider artefacts as being part of these negotiations.⁴⁸⁹ While actor-network theory does not go as far as arguing that machines think like people or decide how people act, it does hold that they have a comparable role because the material world pushes back onto

485 Chesher, “Binding Time,”13.

486 Angus, “The Materiality of Expression”.

487 Innis, Bias, 158-159.

488 Bruno Latour, “The Sociology of a Few Mundane Things,” in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, eds. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 151.

489 Latour, “The Sociology of a Few Mundane Things,”151.

people.⁴⁹⁰ Some scholars argue that ideas of actor-network theory were already present in Innis’ writings, although actor-network theorists do not explicitly construct on Innis’

communication theory.⁴⁹¹ However, in the context of this dissertation, Innis’ theory has strengths over actor-network theory, not only due to his direct focus on, and non-instrumental understanding of, communication and media technologies, but due to his insights provided for studying “bias”. Innis was highly interested in two main types of bias possessed by any medium, which he called space-bias and time-bias. The strength of space-bias media was their portability, namely the ease with which messages could be disseminated across space;

whereas the strength of time-bias media was durability, the ease with which messages could be maintained over time. Accordingly, the next subchapter is dedicated to these concepts.